Supporting Empathy: Preschool Learners

In the preschool years, there are a variety of activities with which you can engage to help support a child develop greater empathy. Read on to learn more about how you can incorporate empathy-related activities with your learners.

Thinking About Empathy (‘I’)

Picture Books

You can help children start thinking about empathy and what it means to them. Picture books are a great way to explore empathy, while also building early literacy skills. Click on the slides below to learn more about a variety of picture books you can incorporate into your read alouds.

Videos

Videos are another great teaching tool for preschoolers. For example, Sesame Street’s (2011) video featuring Mark Ruffalo describes empathy using child-friendly language.

Little Readers’ (2022) video offers a read aloud of You, Me, and Empathy, which you can use as a springboard for a deeper conversation.

Provide time and space inside your classroom for children to talk about their feelings, being mindful of modelling your own empathy skills by reflecting children’s emotions and responding with compassion.

Feeling Empathy (‘We’)

Dramatic Play

Dramatic play is a great way to help young children begin feeling empathic. For example, you can help children learn about different emotions like sadness, anger, happiness, and frustration by expressing emotions using only their bodies and/or faces. In this activity, invite children to pick an emotion from a list without revealing it to their classmates. They can take turns expressing the selected emotion, and observing and guessing the emotions of others. It may be hard to guess, which opens up a conversation that interpreting feelings can be challenging because everyone expresses emotions differently.

You can also help them learn empathy by pretending to care for a baby. Using dolls or stuffed animals, invite children to think about what their baby needs today like milk, food, comfort, getting dressed, playtime, etc. Invite them to think of the ways they like playing with a caregiver (e.g., playing peek-a-boo or singing a favourite song). Encourage them to explore the different ways to care for a baby like feeding them, putting them to sleep, or changing their diaper. You can even encourage the child to “dress up” like a specific caregiver.

Another great way to encourage children to explore emotions through dramatic play is through the use of puppets. You could have children act out different emotions using simple words or actions.

Practicing Empathy (‘Us’)

Art

Art is another great opportunity for children to practice their growing empathy skills. For example, you might give students’ art equipment to use as a creative activity. Ask them to use images of people exhibiting various emotions to make a “feelings collage.” Students should be encouraged to contribute specifics about body language, facial expressions, and context, and should label each image with a feeling term. Permit students to bring their collages home and recommend that they put them on display so they can work on being more conscious of their own feelings.

You might also invite children to express their feelings through various mediums like drawing, painting, or sculpting. Ask them to draw or sculpt various emotions like happiness, sadness, excitement, fear, etc.